


Ways To Go

by deanniker



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Captivity, Enemies to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Language Barrier, M/M, Slow Burn, The Crusades, Travel, violence as a precursor to intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:42:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25344868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deanniker/pseuds/deanniker
Summary: “Don’t -” Nicolo begins, but has no idea what should come next. He has no idea what he needs the man not to do. He only knows what hewantsthe man to do, and that is to lay hands upon him again. Nicolo has the sudden, mad urge to drop the knife, close the distance between them in the hopes that he might be killed a second time.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 326
Kudos: 1831





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oofta, The Old Guard was a gift and I couldn't resist the lure of the Crusades. This almost certainly contains too many religious musings to have been written by an atheist, but... here we are.

Nicolo has long since lost count of the number of times he and the heathen have killed each other. For over a year he kept a tally, sure that God would fashion his sword to be true, and that the fateful number would need to be recorded for posterity. But after the seventh, the fortieth, the hundredth time they died and rose and clashed together again, Nicolo has accepted that God will reward him for his persistence only when he deems it fit. The occasion when the heathen will be struck down is not for Nicolo to anticipate.

So when he gasps back into the world in a cart, and the men surrounding it cheer, he hopes for a moment that it is finally done.

“Dead?” Nicolo rasps.

“No,” one of his countrymen tells him. “But we’ve snared him, by the grace of God.”

Nicolo turns his head. Laid out beside him is his enemy, eyes bright with life once more. It is a familiar sight, but for the chains around his hands and feet. “Praise be to God.” Nicolo murmurs. They usually rise beside each other on the battlefield to begin their clash immediately, but on occasion their countrymen drag them back away before they recover. The fighting has always been too thick for either side to lay claim to the other and bring them back behind enemy lines. It is good that it is Nicolo’s people who have triumphed.

The barbarian hisses something in his tongue, and Nicolo thrusts a dagger between his ribs. 

The man snarls until it turns into a groan of pain, and finally into a sigh as the last breath leaves him. 

The men walking beside the slow moving cart cheer as the man’s limbs collapse into dead flesh, but Nicolo - Nicolo feels unsettled. Never before has he been able to observe his enemy die. He will have been dealt a fatal blow already, or about to receive one. They do not die easily. They always die together. How odd that Nicolo feels alone now, full of life and surrounded by knights who groan in unison when the barbarian coughs awake. 

The enemy stares into his eyes. The blade Nicolo holds is slick with his blood. He should shove it back in, see if kneeling atop him and keeping the knife in his heart would be enough to keep him from coming back. 

He wipes it off on the man’s clothing instead, and steps off to walk beside the cart, away from that sharp black-eyed stare.

***

They chain the barbarian in the middle of the camp, out under the oppressive sun and the swirling sand. He is given no food or water, and grows weak, and dies on the fourth day. 

Nicolo does not like being under the gaze of the heathen - and he always is, whenever he sets foot outside his tent. The man always finds his eyes and Nicolo is unable to look away for reasons he cannot name. But when he lingers outside to observe the man die of thirst his eyes are already glazed over. 

_ An ignoble end,  _ Nicolo thinks when he succumbs. A few moments later, when the man’s chest begins to rise and fall, Nicolo feels relief. It would not have been fitting for such a fierce opponent to be taken down by a parched throat. If Nicolo’s sword could not cleave the life from his body, why should anything else?

The prisoner groans, squinting up into the sun. He raises his hands, fists them into the cloth above his empty stomach, and sighs. Inevitably, he turns his head, finds and holds Nicolo’s eyes. Nicolo turns his back and stalks back into his tent.

***

During the day he fights. There is no one to stand against him now. Nicolo is not so proud to lay claim to their victory, but without their champion the Muslim army loses more ground and more men each day. Nicolo should exalt in their victory. He does not.

He never enjoyed watching his own blood spill out onto the desert rock, but there is something lacking in the war now, with no infernal adversary to battle against. Nicolo is often gripped with the thought that he isn’t meant to be doing this. He cuts down men, hundreds of men, thousands perhaps. And one or two manage to cut him down in return. And always, always, when he walks back to his tent, the eyes of his former adversary follow him. 

One night, when they’ve paused in their fighting and have spent weeks waiting for new orders, everyone on edge, Nicolo hears a strange gurgling, out of place in this dry wasteland. 

No - not out of place. Familiar. Nicolo knows that sound, knows what it means. He runs from his tent, sword in hand. 

One of the younger knights, a new arrival, has buried a spear in the barbarian’s chest. He is dying a slow death, coughing up blood. Nicolo feels a rage so hot that the freezing night air burns against his skin. 

The young man backs away from the look in Nicolo’s eyes, but not fast enough. He falls to the ground with blood arcing out of him in line with the swing of Nicolo’s sword. 

“He is mine to kill,” Nicolo snarls at the people who have crowded around to witness the spectacle. He proves his point by driving his sword deep into his enemy’s throat. He dies instantly. 

Nicolo’s countrymen melt away into the night, leaving only Nicolo and his heathen counterpart, and a young man dying in the dark for the audacity to take a life from the man curling a loose hand around Nicolo’s ankle. 

Nicolo shakes it off, and slits the man’s throat again for good measure.

***

The man’s chains are secured to a boulder, anchors embedded deep into the rock. To think it possible to keep him secure enough to move is folly. Nicolo relocates his tent around him instead, encloses them both in the fabric. It is cramped now, and difficult to navigate while still remaining out of his reach, but Nicolo manages. He no longer needs the extra space. Any men who traveled with him from their country are long since dead or maimed enough to return home. When Nicolo first began rising there was a clamor around him, but as the months passed the looks have turned from admiration to resentment. When they march to battle, they may die, but not Nicolo. No one would enter his tent, even if he asked, and he does not ask. 

Nicolo feeds his captive, places water within his reach. He has no real reason, except that he tires of waking in the night when the man ultimately succumbs to thirst or hunger. 

For the most part, they are content to ignore each other. They are bound by a fate that is too mysterious to understand, and Nicolo knows it must be coming. But in the meantime, the heathen prays to his God at odd intervals, and Nicolo goes off to war and comes back bloody. It is growing more and more rare that it is his own. 

One night, it is his blood that stains the entirety of his surcoat. The red of his cross grows harder and harder to pick out of the once-white fabric stained with all the blood he has spilled, but tonight it is nearly erased. A vicious stroke that nearly severed his head. Nicolo should have seen it coming, but he is tired, so tired, of fighting men who will not get back up with him. 

The only man who can rises to his feet when Nicolo enters the tent, eyes widening as he takes in Nicolo’s appearance. Nicolo crosses the tent to the water, so precious in this climate, not to be wasted on anything other than drink. But his neck is tacky with his own blood, and it smells like iron and the anguish that comes from the idea that this might be his life forever. He dampens a cloth and startles when the man he has trapped in his tent twists him around by the elbow. In his haste he strayed too close. He tries to back away, but freezes when the man traces a finger along Nicolo’s neck, inferring the path of the stroke by the blood that remains. There is a terrible look in his dark eyes, and he spits out something in his native tongue. He replaces the finger with his palm, along the base of Nicolo’s throat. Nicolo shivers. It is the gentlest touch he has felt in a long time.

And then the barbarian snaps his neck.

Nicolo wakes with his head resting on a thigh, a dark hand brushing a damp cloth across Nicolo’s neck. Another hand is sifting through Nicolo’s hair, and above him, a raspy voice chants in an incomprehensible language. 

Nicolo bolts away, snatching his dagger from a table. When he turns around, he cannot drag his eyes away from the man’s hands, fingers curled and resting empty on his thighs. 

Those hands snapped his neck, but Nicolo can only remember how they felt before and after the act of violence, gentle against his skin. The man says something else. It is no more comprehensible than before, but with his eyes trained on the dagger in Nicolo’s hand, he has the distinct impression that he is being scolded.

“Don’t -” Nicolo begins, but has no idea what should come next. He has no idea what he needs the man  _ not  _ to do. He only knows what he  _ wants _ the man to do, and that is to lay hands upon him again. Nicolo has the sudden, mad urge to drop the knife, close the distance between them in the hopes that he might be killed a second time. 

The man stretches his hands out towards him, as though he can hear Nicolo’s thoughts, speaking low and urgently now. 

“No,” Nicolo snaps. “No.” He crosses the tent to deprive the man of his life, and his enemy doesn’t scramble away. He never has, so the only difference is the look in his eyes as he contemplates the dagger in Nicolo’s hand. He looks hopeful. It is so startling that Nicolo pauses. The man cannot welcome death, it hurts them both - and then the truth of it strikes him. The man wants to die so that Nicolo might reverse the positions they were so recently in. 

Nicolo kills with shaking hands, buckles his sword, and flees into the night before the man has time to claw his way back to life. 

Nicolo throws himself into the war for two weeks, refusing to stop for rest or for light or food and water. He grows weak and dies many times as a result. And each time he rises alone. He is always going to be alone.

His prisoner is still in the tent, despite the half-harbored hopes that he might have disappeared by the time Nicolo returned. 

“You must be a devil.” Nicolo tells him. “A demon. To live and die and live again.”

The man just looks back at him. He had to have perished from neglect in the time that Nicolo has been gone, but it must have happened recently. His eyes are still bright and his limbs are not heavy with sluggishness. 

“Why do you torment me?” Nicolo asks. 

A foolish question, one that gets no answer.

If this man is a demon, what is he, Nicolo? He is no angel. If this was a gift from God he has not been made aware of what to do with it. He is filled with no glorious purpose. There is nothing like him in the Holy Book. And yet, there is another like him, in this tent, who does not look like an agent of damnation. A man who only looks like he does not want to be alone. 

Nicolo casts his sword aside, walks within easy reach of his prisoner. Tries not to sigh when the man reaches out with quick hands, to twist Nicolo’s neck to the point of breaking once again. 

Nicolo wakes the same way as before. A large hand gentle through his hair, head pillowed against a thick thigh, a slow murmur of Arabic low in the tent. For a handful of moments, Nicolo keeps his eyes closed, pretends to still be gripped by death. The man, though he must see the rise and fall of Nicolo’s chest, does not stop until Nicolo pulls away and places distance between them. 

“I am Yusuf Al-Kaysani.”

Nicolo blinks as the words register. It is not his dialect, and the syllables jumble together awkwardly. Something repeated, not learned, but the meaning is clear. 

Nicolo struggles to do the same. “I am Nicolo di Genova.” 

He has to force the unfamiliar language out of his mouth, and it sounds nothing like the words his prisoner speaks, but the man grins. His teeth are so startlingly white against the shades of brown that make up his face that, for a moment, Nicolo feels blinded. 

“Nicolo,” Yusuf Al-Kaysani repeats. “Nicolo.”


	2. Chapter 2

Life, or in Nicolo’s case, life and death, goes on. He marches off to war with the army at his back, though he notices that they wait longer and longer before joining him on the field, letting him bear the first brunt of the attack. He feels no different from a ditch dug in the ground, a line of spears to blunt the force of the opposing army. He either recovers faster now and wakes before anyone has time to reach him and drag him away, or no one bothers to try.

He cannot tell whether having Yusuf in his tent to kill him and comfort him is the only thing keeping Nicolo from going insane, or if the way he lets himself be tugged into Yusuf’s arms for a death is the marker that means that he already has succumbed to madness. Either way, Nicolo is finding it harder and harder to care about the distinction. Yusuf is a demon, intent on dragging Nicolo’s soul down to hell one vicious embrace at a time, or he is not. He is a man, kind enough to grant Nicolo the one thing he could never manage by himself, or he is not. What does salvation or damnation matter, when it seems they are already eternal?

Yusuf never asks him outright to return the favor but Nicolo can tell it is on his mind by the way he eyes Nicolo’s hands - that he too aches to be brought back into this world with a gentle touch. It is selfish, Nicolo knows, to take so much comfort from him and not respond with it in turn, but - Nicolo knows that he cannot kill Yusuf and hold him and go out the next day to wage war against his people. He has enough trouble with that already, from the few concessions he has given. 

The list grows longer with each day. Longer chains so that Yusuf can move more freely about the tent. There is only a small space left where Nicolo sleeps, that Yusuf cannot reach. That was met with a long, slow look as Nicolo exchanged the chains. When Nicolo came back with a proper portion of food for him, instead of the typical scraps, Yusuf had grinned at him, and chiseled another crack into Nicolo’s convictions.

It should have been enough to stop him, but Nicolo cannot resist offering more. When parcelling out their food Nicolo gives Yusuf the choicest portions, the items he digs into with the most relish, purely for the enjoyment that comes from watching Yusuf devour with gusto. After Yusuf kills him and Nicolo pulls away, he stays up late into the night, guiding Yusuf’s tongue around more of his words, smiling when he masters a phrase.

It would not be such a problem if it were not bleeding over into other parts of Nicolo’s life. But already Nicolo is less likely to kill. He does not attack anymore, blocks the strikes that come but does nothing to pursue any man who flees from the reach of his sword. Nicolo’s countrymen have noticed, and it is with greater and greater resentment that they look at him now. But he cannot bring himself to cease the small acts of kindness that cause Yusuf to smile at him. It is the only time he feels like a person, not just a weapon, something to be sharpened and set loose.

It is not good, but it is better than when they had to fight each other. Perhaps Nicolo could bear an eternity of war.

Until, one day, it stops. 

It is a day like any other. Nicolo fought and killed and this time avoided being killed in return. When he returns to his tent Yusuf greets him with a nod, and Nicolo nods back at him while he discards his weapons and armor. He crosses to the bucket of water, now strategically placed so that Nicolo’s falling body does not overturn it. 

He picks up the rag and begins to wipe off the sweat and the blood of other men, tensing in anticipation of Yusuf’s hands. He is so clever, Nicolo’s counterpart, always coming up with new ways to kill with only his hands and the limited things he can reach and adapt into weapons. Sometimes it is so painless that Nicolo only knows he has been killed when he wakes with his head in Yusuf’s lap - a novel, welcome experience when otherwise Nicolo has known nothing but pain. 

Other times Yusuf takes his time with it, wrestling Nicolo down to the ground and choking the life out of him with a thick arm across his throat, wrapping his limbs around to keep him secure when Nicolo’s body jolts on instinct, trying to get away. Nicolo treasures those times too, though he shies away from trying to understand why.

But this time, Yusuf does not reach for him. Nicolo finishes cleaning himself, and when he turns around Yusuf has not even gotten to his feet. Nicolo frowns, eyes the slivers of light that peek through the gaps in the fabric of the tent. Perhaps it is nearing one of Yusuf’s times for prayer. 

But it is many hours before Yusuf begins to pray.

***

It is not just one time. Nicolo watches carefully and only crosses into Yusuf’s path when he is sure the other man is not hungry or thirsty, about to sleep or pray. Yusuf never kills him. 

Nicolo knows he should consider this a relief, that they are once again playing the roles ascribed to them. It should allow him to take up his sword with renewed purpose, strike down Yusuf’s kin with a fresh rage. Perhaps that could be, but Yusuf still nods at him when he enters the tent, still smiles when Nicolo passes him food. He continues to expand his knowledge of Nicolo’s tongue.

Because of this, every time Nicolo enters the tent after a day of battle he holds out hope that Yusuf might return to striking him down, and feels a deeper sting each time he does not. 

Perhaps he is a demon after all, and it was always his plan to enthrall Nicolo with kindness and devastate him when he took it away. But even as the idea enters his mind Nicolo feels sick at himself for thinking such an ugly thought. Jerusalem may still be a place that needs to be claimed for Christ, and Yusuf and his people and faith may be different, but it is becoming quite clear that the things he was taught in the Church, that Nicolo would find nothing but barbarian savagery and ugliness in the desert, was just something to get him to take up a sword. Yusuf is just finally unwilling to give comfort to a man who has slaughtered so many of his kin.

He tries to content himself with the companionship Yusuf is still willing to give him, and spends his waking hours searching for new ways to make him happier. He gives him blankets, finds him paper with which to pass the time. Yusuf cannot write, or chooses not to reveal that about himself, but he sketches, shows them to Nicolo when he returns with a hint of pride that suggests he thinks himself more skilled than he is.

It is only after he secures a prayer mat for Yusuf that Nicolo stops to wonder if he is engaging in bribery.

When he enters the tent with the mat under his arm, Yusuf is asleep, curled up on his side. It gives Nicolo a moment to picture what might happen if he were to shake him awake. Yusuf is slow to rise - he would bring a hand up, over his eyes, mutter a few words in Arabic until he remembers to switch. Nicolo would hold out the mat, and Yusuf would look surprised, maybe delighted - for what? The barest slivers of human dignity that Nicolo gives him? He would not need Nicolo to provide him these things, if he were not imprisoned, if there were no shackles binding his hands.

Nicolo’s stomach turns over. He sets the prayer mat down within Yusuf’s reach  _ (sajjādat aṣ-ṣalāt, the trader had told him, and frowned when Nicolo mangled it - why didn’t he see earlier) _ , and leaves before he wakes. He finds himself walking to the command tent. 

He was brought there, once - a week or two after Nicolo started to rise, when he was still being hailed as a sign from God that their cause was blessed. It had been an honor then, and he still has a reputation now. The handful of men that are within quiet when he approaches. 

“I am finished with the Crusade,” Nicolo tells them.

They do not look surprised or concerned. The leader, a great hulking brute of a man - Nicolo cannot remember his name, he was not in charge when Nicolo first stepped ashore in this land - sets down his papers, and says, quite calmly: “No."

“I have spilled and shed more blood than any man here,” Nicolo says. “I am done.”

“You are God’s chosen weapon,” The leader says. “You will not refuse your intended purpose. What’s more, you would never make it to the coast.”

Nicolo swallows hard around that truth. Eyes follow him wherever he moves, and any man mistaken for a deserter is shot down - he could not slip away. “I will not fight.”

“You will,” the leader says, without a hint of concern. Nicolo turns on his heel and finds his way back to his tent.

Yusuf has awoken by the time Nicolo returns. It is plain to see he has examined the mat, rerolled it and set it aside. The stare he gives Nicolo is unfathomable, like the ones from before they began to know each other.

Nicolo cannot bear to look at him. He gets ready for bed in hurried movements, and when Yusuf says his name quietly some minutes later, Nicolo pretends he is already asleep.

There is no fighting the next day. They are close enough to the walls now that their plans must be more carefully coordinated, no longer simply - this company attacks from the west first, this company moves in a few minutes later. 

The atmosphere in their tent is strange, tenser than when they first began sharing this space. They do not speak. Nicolo finds himself pacing, scratching at his arms and trying to avoid Yusuf’s heavy gaze. 

He examines the things that he takes to war. Most of it was not his to start, taken off of dead men when the weapons he brought from home shattered from one too many blows, when his armor had more holes in it than chains. Only the surcoat was his, and it is ugly and vile. It is all one brown stain, the fabric stiff and hardened with blood, no chance of making out the cross. There are rents in it as well, as many as there were in his mail, but it seemed wrong to take that off a dead man. When he brings it to his nose it reeks - he throws it away into a corner. Small wonder Yusuf cannot bear to touch him any longer.

When Yusuf begins to pray, as devout as the day that Nicolo first drew his tent around him, Nicolo watches with despair. He may not understand the particulars of Yusuf's faith, but he can see that it is strong, unwavering. Perhaps that is because he does not know how close Nicolo’s army is to breaching the walls, or perhaps it is just an unshakeable part of him. Either way - if the city falls, if it is Nicolo’s god who triumphs, whatever has built up between them will shatter. The sting Nicolo felt when Yusuf stopped killing him will be nothing compared to losing his company, to the endless years that stretch out ahead with no one at his side. 

Nicolo feels the time they have left slipping away, but he has no idea what to do with it, and settles for doing nothing at all. 

The next day, the call goes out to the camp. War. Nicolo is expected - he stays stubbornly in his tent, refusing to move, ignoring Yusuf's perplexed look. 

They come for him, entering the tent, casting disgusted looks at what they find within, the evidence of Nicolo’s gifts, Yusuf sitting in relative comfort on the ground. 

“I told you I would not fight,” Nicolo says. 

“You must,” they say. 

“I will not,” Nicolo affirms, but his voice wavers when they turn their gaze on Yusuf.

“This barbarian has corrupted you.” 

Their intent strikes Nicolo moments before they act, shoving a sword deep between Yusuf's ribs. He stops the protest before it claws its way out of his throat, but only just. Yusuf cuts his hands when he tries to remove the sword from his chest, but he dies before he manages. Nicolo clenches his hands into fists, takes up his own sword, and leaves the tent before Yusuf has to wake surrounded by his enemies. 

He did not take his shield or his armor. It is a terrible day. At the end of it the walls are still standing, but Nicolo knows their time is over.

Yusuf has not been taken away, which is fortunate. It would be more difficult to engineer his release if Nicolo had to raid the encampment to locate him. Instead all he has to do is rummage in his bedding to find the keys, use them to unlock the shackles. Yusuf rubs his wrists once he is released. They could not be chafed, but perhaps they are cold. 

Yusuf frowns and tugs at Nicolos ruined, bloodstained clothes, dips his fingers into the rents, tracing the places where Nicolo’s flesh was recently torn. Nicolo keeps himself from leaning into it, pushing Yusuf's hands away before he is tempted. He places his own hand on Yusuf's throat, like Yusuf had done to him so long ago. “Do you want?” He whispers. 

Yusuf swallows so hard Nicolo can see it beneath his thick beard. He nods. 

Nicolo frames his face with his hands. “Hands?” He asks. 

Yusuf shakes his head and nods towards Nicolo’s weapons. “Knife.”

Nicolo nods, stoops to pick it up. “Slow?” He guesses, and Yusuf nods. 

Nicolo examines the knife. There are more nicks than blade, and the straight edges that do remain are dull. It is unworthy of piercing Yusuf's skin. He finds his whetstone, begins to sharpen it. Yusuf makes a low noise in the back of his throat.

It is still unworthy when Nicolo finally gets an edge onto it. It remains a cheap knife. But Nicolo does not think the finest steel would make him feel better about this. He avoids Yusuf’s eyes as he fists a hand in Yusuf's shirt, twisting and toppling them both to the ground. Yusuf goes with it easily, no resistance at all, and Nicolo wonders if he too felt so eager when their positions were reversed, if he was so transparent in his desire for a gentle touch. 

Yusuf's broad back is up against his chest, and he shifts a little in Nicolo’s hold, enough that Nicolo feels justified in wrapping his legs around him, keeping him close, secure. He hooks a hand under Yusuf's jaw, tilting his head back against his shoulder. “Nicolo,” Yusuf breathes. He grabs at Nicolo’s arm, but only to hang on. He does not attempt to pull away. 

It is not a haphazard slash. Yusuf asked for it slow, so Nicolo makes the barest slice into Yusuf's throat, where his pulse thrums beneath Nicolo’s fingers. When he feels hot blood slick against his fingers Nicolo throws the knife as far away as he can, presses his hand over Yusuf's throat, pretends that instead of having taken Yusuf's life away, Nicolo will be what knits him back together. 

Yusuf's hair is not like Nicolo’s. It is a riotous mass of tight curls, and if Nicolo were to try to run his fingers through it he would be hopelessly ensnared. He sinks his other hand into it instead, rubs his fingers against Yusuf's scalp, tugs gently on the curls as he waits for Yusuf to come back to him. 

Yusuf wakes with a low moan, jerking in Nicolo’s grasp. Nicolo slides the hand that was pressed against Yusuf's throat down over his heart, keeps him boxed in like that for a few more minutes. 

“I think this must be damnation,” Nicolo confesses. Yusuf will not be able to understand him fully - Nicolo tried to teach him only pleasant words. Perhaps that is why Nicolo continues. “Why else would we be made this way and placed against each other? We must kill each other - we must be damned.”

Nicolo releases him, and Yusuf pulls away. 

“Go,” Nicolo says. “Please.” 

Yusuf does, leaving everything behind, as though all the things that Nicolo gave to him were meaningless.

***

When the morning comes with the call to battle, Nicolo dresses himself in his armor, his surcoat, picks up his sword and his shield. What does he have now, but war?

Nicolo marches out, taking his position out in the sand halfway between the city and the Christian army, a rabid dog chained in the front of a house, too dangerous to be set loose and too valuable to be set free. 

The gates open, and a single rider spills out.

Perhaps a small part of Nicolo hoped that if they met each other on the battlefield he would be able to recapture that same righteous purpose he felt all those months ago. But he only feels hollow. Yusuf's blade shines as he raises it into the air, but Nicolo does not even think about matching it. He unsheathes his sword and throws it away into the sand, much as he had the inferior knife the night before. 

He could not begin to guess how many times he has killed the man in front of him, but he cannot bear to add another to that list. Nicolo will not do it, not even if they meet in battle every day for a thousand more years. 

Yusuf reins up his horse a few feet from him when he sees what Nicolo has done. 

Nicolo opens his mouth, to say what, he does not know - they do not share enough words even if Nicolo knew what he wanted to say - but arrows begin to rain down on them before he manages a single word. Yusuf’s horse screams and goes down; Nicolo takes an arrow in the back. He staggers forward, crouches over Yusuf before any can strike him. 

Yusuf’s horse took multiple arrows - it will be dead long before it could take Yusuf back to the city. Nicolo shoves his shield into Yusuf’s hands. “Go,” he says, coughing up blood.

Yusuf reaches around and yanks the arrow out of Nicolo’s back. 

He heaves in a clean breath and allows Yusuf to pull him to his feet, but plants them when Yusuf begins to tug him toward the city. “I will stay,” Nicolo tells him. “I will try to stop my people.” 

Perhaps he understands, perhaps he does not, but he turns and makes his way back to the city gates, bearing Nicolo’s shield behind him. The arrows do not stop, so Nicolo dodges them, takes a few as he makes his way to his discarded sword. By the time he reaches it a line of horsemen wearing crosses are bearing down on him. He has just enough time to rip what remains of his surcoat away. Nicolo sets his feet and prepares to cut down as many as he can. 

In the end he is only one man. He strikes down most of them and the rest hang back, but a few of them have bows and arrows, and it is only a matter of time before he dies. 

When he wakes, he is chained in the back of a cart, jolting it’s way away from the battle and toward the camp. Nicolo begins to laugh, and receives a knife to his throat as a result.

The next time he wakes he is in his tent, in a set of chains far shorter than the first that were used on Yusuf. His back is up against the boulder, and his hands hang around his head. If he strains, he can hear the sounds of the battle, though he has no hope of following it. 

They leave him there for three days, until the sounds of the battle fade. When a man enters his tent, it is not one of the commanders that Nicolo recognizes, but perhaps they have all died. 

“We have taken the city,” this new man tells him.

“What will you do with me?” Nicolo asks. 

“There will be another city.”

“I will not fight for you,” Nicolo says. “You cannot make me.”

“We shall see.” He steps outside the tent for a moment, comes back with another man. This one Nicolo does recognize - it is their torturer. Nicolo squeezes his eyes shut and starts to laugh again.

Eventually they tire of hurting him, and Nicolo is left alone to let his wounds close themselves. The pain fades, but Nicolo knows they will not leave him in a comfortable state for long. He tries to get sleep while he can.

When he wakes, it is to the sound of a blade slicing tent fabric apart. 

“Yusuf,” Nicolo breathes. 

It is him, but the man who crosses into Nicolo’s line of sight is not one that he recognizes. It is not the peaceful, curious Yusuf that Nicolo knows from his tent, or the first man who was without a name, angry and dangerous and cutting down everything in his path. This man is grieving, hurt, confused. He must have come here to find Nicolo, but he does not look at him while he paces the length of the tent. 

“I’m sorry,” Nicolo tells him.

Yusuf turns to him then. He has been crying - his eyes puffy and rimmed in red. There is blood, so much blood, on his clothes. 

“I’m sorry,” Nicolo repeats.

Yusuf kneels between his legs, considers him. Something ugly crosses his face, and he presses his hands hard against Nicolo’s throat for a brief moment before that impulse leaves him. He drops his hands, looking lost. Nicolo wonders if he had family in the city, if they were all slaughtered, if a single Muslim besides Yusuf is left. He reaches out as best he can with one of his hands, and the moment Yusuf reaches up Nicolo laces their fingers together. “I’m here,” he whispers. “I will always be here.”

Yusuf exhales and tips forward, pressing their heads together. Nicolo has just enough chain to curl his other hand around Yusuf’s neck. 

They stay that way until they are breathing in the same pattern, until Nicolo’s hand begins to go numb, pinned as it is between Yusuf’s and the rock. Nicolo does not complain, though he flexes his hand when Yusuf finally sits back and releases him.

Yusuf examines the cuffs, before placing a hand hard over Nicolo’s mouth. Before Nicolo has time to wonder why Yusuf slams his hand against the rock and crushes what feels like every bone in his hand. 

Nicolo yelps into Yusuf’s palm, and instinctively tries to slap Yusuf across the face with his newly freed hand. Yusuf catches his wrist before the strike can land, which Nicolo is grateful for. His hand is still mangled, and he does not want to hurt Yusuf anymore than he already has. 

Once his hand is healed he fists it into Yusuf’s clothing and nods. His other hand breaks no less gently, but now that he knows it is coming it is easier to keep quiet, and it is just a small moan that needs to be stifled. 

Yusuf pulls him to his feet. “Come,” he directs.

“Wait.” Nicolo tugs away from Yusuf’s grip, gathers up Yusuf’s sketches, the wooden horse he spent weeks carving, and the prayer mat, somehow still in the tent. He places them all in a bag and slings it over his shoulder. “Now,” he says, nodding. 

Yusuf stays rooted to the ground, eyes wide.

“Yusuf?” Nicolo asks.

Yusuf crosses to him and presses their foreheads together once more - just a brief thing, his hand gentle against the back of Nicolo’s skull for only a moment. Then he grasps Nicolo’s hand and pulls him through the hole in the tent.


	3. Chapter 3

Yusuf steers them southwest, around the city and away from the coast. They avoid the road, making their own way across the rocky terrain. There is no moon, and even with starlight they stumble over rocks, feet failing to find safe purchase on the uneven ground. By unspoken agreement they keep their hands clasped together. With every step they take the world feels larger, and this way when one of them trips or falls the other knows to stop, even in the dark, even as weak as they are. 

Nicolo dies before the sun begins to rise, too many days without food and water taking their toll. The last thing he feels before he slumps to the ground is his hand slipping out of Yusuf’s grasp, but by the time he wakes they are joined together again, Yusuf kneeling by his side. Nicolo gets to his feet, and they stumble on.

When the sun starts to peek over the horizon Yusuf turns his attention to scanning their surroundings, eventually leading them towards a rock that stands a little higher than the rest. They sit together in the shadow cast by it, and only then does Yusuf let go of his hand.

Sleep does not come easily. They keep having to shuffle around the rock as the sun makes its way across the sky, and there are a handful of truly miserable hours in the middle of the day when it is too high for them to get any shade. Nicolo faints from the heat, he thinks - either that or he dies, again. He wakes in the shade, Yusuf having dragged him around to the cool side of the rock. When evening comes they set out again. Yusuf takes his hand when the last of the light fades away.

Two nights later it is Nicolo who feels Yusuf’s hand slip from his own moments before he topples to the ground. He is not yet dead - dehydration is a slow killer, and Nicolo kneels beside him and holds his hand for the endless time it takes for it to go from weak to limp. 

Nicolo has spent many hours contemplating the nature of their condition, so it is not the first time he has wondered whether their time is finite. Were they only granted an extra year, or two? Will it be their thousandth death that sticks? It is not the first time he has wondered whether Yusuf will not return, but it is the first time that the thought fills him with dread. He will be hopelessly lost in this desert, this country, without him. He brings Yusuf’s hand up to his lips. “Wake up,” he whispers, to the knuckles that have scraped across his jaw more than once, that have split open against Nicolo’s armor.

In time, Yusuf does, and they set out again.

***

When Yusuf clears his throat two weeks into their wandering and says, rasping, “I am thirsty,” Nicolo nearly trips.

They have not spoken since they left the war behind. It is plain that Yusuf still has not come to terms with what happened to the city, and Nicolo assumed that he could not bring himself to speak the language of a person who butchered so many of his people. Yusuf seems to know that Nicolo was not what turned the tide of the war, but he still catches Yusuf looking at him occasionally as though he is disgusted with himself for travelling with an invader. It is understandable - when Nicolo imagines their positions reversed, a foreign army in the streets of Genoa, he feels sick. He has thought about asking Yusuf to teach him his own language, but doubts that would be received any better. Nicolo glances at him and wonders what he has ever done to be worthy of such forgiveness.

He squeezes Yusuf’s hand. “I am thirsty as well,” he says.

There is not much to say in the dark, but the nights pass easier now that they are speaking to one another again. Yusuf remains a quick learner - Nicolo is starting to suspect that he must have held himself back when he was a prisoner, pretended to struggle when he did not need to. It is plain he does not know Zeneize, but he must already have some knowledge of a latin tongue, Castillian perhaps, or Catalan. There is something vaguely Spanish in the way he shapes his vowels, and the rhythm comes naturally to him. The deception was wise - Nicolo does not hold it against him.

Eventually, they come across a stream, barely more than a few dirty inches deep. Yusuf tries to keep Nicolo from drinking from it, but Nicolo gulps down his fill anyway, and a few hours later begins shaking and sweating with sickness. Yusuf sits beside him and rubs his back, brushes his hair behind his ear when Nicolo begins to vomit. 

Once Nicolo is recovered, they follow the stream, which grows wide and deep enough that Yusuf deems it safe to drink, and eventually leads to an enormous expanse of water, the smell of salt thick in the air. 

Nicolo strips and dives into it, shivering with pleasure as the dust and sweat sluices away from his body. Yusuf follows, but more carefully, placing one foot cautiously in front of the other, stopping and sitting once it reaches his thighs. 

“You cannot swim?” Nicolo asks. 

“Swim…” Yusuf repeats it a few times, and then runs it through the conjugations as Nicolo nods. “No, I cannot swim.”

“I could teach you,” Nicolo offers. 

“You teach too much,” Yusuf tells him, smiling just a little, the first one Nicolo has seen since the sack. “Maybe I need to teach you.”

Nicolo paddles closer. “What would you teach me?” He asks, softly. As expected, Yusuf looks startled at himself for having made an offer, even in jest. A little sad, a little angry. He frowns down at the water. 

Disappointed but not surprised, Nicolo ducks his head under one more time and gets out, pulling on his clothes and trying to run his fingers through his hair, which was tangled and matted before they left the war, and has only gotten worse. The salt will not have helped him there, but Nicolo feels so refreshed he cannot be bothered to care.

“I cannot teach you anything,” Yusuf says. “You are too stupid to learn.”

Nicolo whirls around, startled. Yusuf is back to smiling at him, a little unsure - but Nicolo is definitely being teased. He cannot keep himself from beaming, and slowly, Yusuf’s smile grows wider too.

***

The inland sea is far too salty to drink from, a frustrating thing to encounter in a desert, and the shores are barren of life, but there are plenty of small streams that flow into it, lined with bushes and shade to shelter in. They switch to travelling during the morning and evening hours, resting at night and at midday when it is hottest. 

It would be impractical to move with clasped hands now, so they do not. Nicolo, privately, misses the feeling of Yusuf’s palm against his own, a physical proof of their connection. 

Yusuf does not tell him where they are going and Nicolo does not ask, afraid that the answer will be _to a place where I can be rid of you forever._ If Nicolo’s foggy memories of maps are accurate there is not much to the south, and the further they go the more lost Nicolo will be - but Yusuf could have already abandoned him many times over. It is foolish to think he still might but Nicolo cannot help but wake with fear in his throat every morning, and shudder with relief when Yusuf is still there. This life, of scrambling over rocks, foraging for nuts and berries, searching for water, is not an easy one, but it is loneliness that terrifies Nicolo now. If Yusuf intends for them to spend eternity in this place, Nicolo will not complain.

Of course, the moment that Nicolo lets himself grow comfortable with that idea they are found by others. 

Nicolo sees the four riders first. He is gathering water up one of the little tributaries, and when he sees that they are Yusuf’s people he ducks for cover behind one of the bushes. Yusuf is washing his hands knee deep in the sea, too far away for Nicolo to call out and warn him without drawing attention to himself. Yusuf turns and says a few words to them, before one of them puts an arrow in Yusuf’s throat.

Nicolo has not seen Yusuf die of violence in a long while, and when Yusuf topples back into the sea it tugs at something in him, making him snarl and start to his feet. He bursts out of the bushes with nothing but rage - he left his weapons back in the tent with the crusade. But Yusuf’s scimitar is down by the shore, and if they prevent him from reaching it Nicolo will bring them down with his hands and his teeth. 

His eyes find Yusuf's body, bobbing in the water and drifting away from the shore, and Nicolo’s anger is replaced in an instant by terror. It will be dark soon, and Yusuf cannot swim.

Nicolo runs into the water, men forgotten, and swims out to Yusuf. He pushes past the pain of the few arrows that find him, but can feel his own life draining away by the time he reaches Yusuf, so he does not waste time trying to tie them together. He simply shoves his own arm up one of Yusuf’s sleeves as far as it will go, curling his fingers around Yusuf’s elbow and fisting his other hand into Yusuf’s collar, hoping that it will be enough to keep them from drifting apart.

When he wakes it is to darkness, and Yusuf jerking and clutching at his arm, shoving Nicolo under the water as he tries to climb on top of him. 

Nicolo sputters and chokes, unable to speak as Yusuf ducks him under again and again. Yusuf drowns himself before Nicolo can convince him to calm down, but it means that Nicolo can begin towing him back to the shore, grateful now for the way the salt makes them float high in the water. 

They did not drift very far out from the shore, but Nicolo does not recognize the bank as he drags Yusuf’s body out of the water, and the panic, dulled when he needed to take action, sets in again. His hands shake as he tilts Yusuf’s face towards him, difficult to make out in the darkness, but clearly still dead. He brushes his hair away from his forehead, waiting for his skin to warm again. 

Yusuf comes alive with a horrible retch, water spilling out of his mouth. His fists his hands into Nicolo’s shirt, coughing and coughing for so long that Nicolo’s lungs ache in sympathy. When Yusuf finally sags back to the ground with a clear breath, Nicolo wipes at his eyes, telling himself that the sting in them and the salt he tastes on his lips is from the brine.

Yusuf lays a hand on his arm. “You did not fight?”

“You were in the water,” Nicolo tells him. 

There is a long silence, and then, soft: “You know I cannot die.”

It is the first time either of them have spoken of it, this thing that makes them the same when they are otherwise so different. But of course, that is not the only way in which they are similar. They are both fighters, men far from home and alone except for each other. Nicolo fists his hands in Yusuf’s shirt and hauls him into a sitting position, so close that their faces are nearly touching. “You were in the water,” he repeats. “You were drifting away from me.”

Even in the dark, Nicolo sees Yusuf’s eyes widen, as though that hadn’t occurred to him. He curls his hands around Nicolo’s wrists.

“How would I find you again?” Nicolo asks. “Where could I look for you?”

“Nicolo -”

“Where?” Nicolo demands, shaking him. “Where are you taking us?”

“Alexandria.”

Nicolo shakes his head. There’s no denying his tears now. “I don’t know the way,” he says, helplessly. “I don’t know the way. Yusuf, please - please don’t -”

Yusuf leans in closer, pressing their heads together. “I will not leave you,” he says, lifting a hand to thumb away Nicolo’s tears. Nicolo turns his head into Yusuf’s palm, and Yusuf presses his lips into Nicolo’s temple, beard scratching against the side of his face. 

They are cold and wet, and stinking of brine. Nicolo thinks back on all the times they were pressed together in his tent, sometimes closer, but never like this. How cheap it had been. He makes a promise of his own. “Nor I you.”

***

Yusuf squints at the stars, and the shore, and decides they must have drifted south.

“We could keep going,” Nicolo points out. 

“They may hurt other people,” Yusuf says grimly. “And they have our things.”

Nicolo takes Yusuf’s hand as they set out. He feels Yusuf glance at him - now that they’re eating and drinking regularly, there is little chance that they will be too delirious to lose track of each other, but he does not say anything, and he does not pull away.

They find the men who killed them by the end of the night, clustered around a fire, laughing and talking. Yusuf listens to them, jaw tightening at what he hears, and nods.

They run out together, making quick of the men. With four they are barely outnumbered, and Nicolo snatches a knife from the belt of one and slits the man’s throat before he realizes it’s gone. He grabs a longer blade from the ground and drives it into another man’s gut, and by the time he turns around Yusuf has dispatched the other two, though he has a hand pressed to his belly, fingers red with blood.

By the time Nicolo crosses to him the slash in his side is nearly gone, just a thin line across his stomach. Nicolo bites his lip as he watches it close, fingers twitching at his side. He startles when Yusuf takes one of his hands and presses it against his healed skin. 

“Good,” Yusuf tells him. 

Nicolo’s eyes dart up to meet Yusuf’s, dark and soft, glittering in the light thrown by the fire. He ducks his head back down, watching his fingers test the give of Yusuf’s skin. “Good,” he agrees.

***

Fighting with Yusuf gives Nicolo a sense of purpose again. Not that they are always fighting - when they strike out west from the Dead Sea most of the villages that lie between them and Alexandria are more in need of a repair than blades. Nicolo loses count of the number of wells they have dug, always in return for a place to sleep, or a meal. But sometimes, people tell Yusuf of a group of men who came in the night, stealing things, hurting people. Sometimes they are Crusaders, sometimes they are not, but Yusuf always listens, and if it was recent enough he and Nicolo head out to find them.

They do not always kill the men that they find. Some of them are starving, desperate enough to turn to violence but aching over it, young boys who cry in the night when they think there is no one around to watch them - and it is not right for those people to be struck down by men such as them. 

So their purpose is less clear now, subject to their own judgement, but Nicolo feels better about the men he picks off with his arrows. (Yusuf had been confused when Nicolo opted to take that weapon instead of one of the curved swords of the men they’d first killed, particularly when he saw how out of practice Nicolo was with a bow. Nicolo had not been able to explain that he took it because he dreads a repeat of what happened by the sea, Nicolo helpless while Yusuf was too far away for him to protect.)

They make slow progress west. Yusuf will mutter that they would make better time if they were hired by a caravan, but Nicolo is relieved that the only ones that agree to take them on are not making the journey all the way to Alexandria. They cannot allow anyone to discover their secret, and it would be far more difficult with more eyes on them. Yusuf is also different when with his countrymen - he joins them in prayer, even though when he and Nicolo are alone the most he does with the mat is contemplate it, hands folded up under his chin, a frown on his face. It is not Nicolo’s business so he has never asked about it, but it is a stark reminder that their companionship is built on nothing but their shared inability to die, that he has been changed by the war, by the actions of Nicolo’s people.

Their differences, which were hard to see when they were alone in the desert and on the shore of the Dead Sea, are also easier to pick out now, even when they pass through the villages by themselves. Nicolo does not understand Yusuf’s language, and he will never fit in in his home - he doesn’t belong, he shouldn’t have come here. The adults are right to mistrust him, and many of the children follow their lead, though some of them will tug on his hands until he kneels down, to get a better look at his eyes. 

Yusuf no longer looks at Nicolo as though he’s surprised to see him, but Nicolo finds himself being watched, while they are working to repair fences, as Nicolo clumsily teaches himself how to say a handful of phrases: ‘hello,’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘please.’ 

He can’t help but wonder whether Yusuf regrets the promise that he made not to leave him. His life would be simpler if he did, that much is clear. Nicolo does not wish for them to part ways, but he cannot deny that they no longer need each other, if they ever did. 

Nicolo mentions it after the latest caravan they escorted has turned around, and Yusuf has found them a new group of scoundrels to track. It is a group of crusaders this time, foreigners cutting a bloody line through the local population, yet another reminder that in a just world Nicolo would be left to fend for himself. He waits until the cover of darkness, staring up at the stars as he forces the words out of his throat: “You don’t have to be with me.”

Nicolo hears Yusuf turn his head to look at him, but he keeps his gaze fixed on the sky overhead. “No,” Yusuf says “I do not.”

Nicolo squeezes his eyes shut, but when he wakes in the morning Yusuf has not left him. They have a mission, after all - Yusuf is too practical to drive him away on the eve of a fight.

They find the crusaders sheltering in a low ravine, and crouch down to listen in order to be sure that these men are the ones they’ve been looking for, and that they are truly deserving of death. They are from a different part of Italy, but Nicolo can understand some of it - ugly things that he hopes Yusuf cannot understand. 

He nods, and draws his bow while Yusuf makes his way down the slope towards their camp. They have learned that it is best for Nicolo to wait until Yusuf gets within striking distance before firing. 

They have done this many times, and despite being certain that this will be the last time, something in Nicolo settles into surety.

But then the ground beneath Yusuf’s feet crumbles away, and he slips and stumbles his way down to the bottom. The crusaders whirl around, snatching up their weapons. Nicolo shoots, but there are too many of them and he is not quick enough to prevent one of the men from driving his sword deep into Yusuf’s gut. 

Nicolo stumbles down the slope, cursing himself for not having a longer blade on hand. Yusuf solves that problem for him, yanking the sword out of his own body and tossing it to Nicolo as he reaches the bottom. He grasps his scimitar and staggers to his feet, already slashing away at their enemies.

He is magnificent. Nicolo wastes a handful of moments gaping at him before he remembers that there are men to kill.

It is over quickly. Nicolo drops the sword as soon as he is sure the last of them are dead and rushes to Yusuf, staggering under his weight when he slumps into Nicolo’s arms. “Are you alright?” he asks.

Yusuf chuckles, breath puffing out against Nicolo’s neck. He gets his feet back under him after a few moments, straightens so that Nicolo is not the only thing holding him up, but he doesn’t step back. If anything he moves closer, wrapping an arm around Nicolo’s back, picking up his head so that they are standing cheek to cheek. “You know I will not be hurt for long,” he murmurs, directly into Nicolo’s ear.

Nicolo shivers. The evening air is cold, and Yusuf is so warm. His arms tighten around Yusuf before he realizes that he never let go. “I - do not like seeing you in pain.”

Yusuf pulls back, finally, but not very far. He looks at Nicolo for a long time before raising his hand and cupping Nicolo’s jaw. “I do not have to be with you,” he says. His eyes are dark with something Nicolo has never seen before. “Do you understand?”

For a long moment, Nicolo does not. What is there to understand? There is only Yusuf, staring at him as he always has, and Nicolo unable to look away.

But no, that’s not quite right - there has never been anything preventing him from turning his head, or closing his eyes. Nicolo _wants_ to look back, dove into the sea after him because he _wanted_ Yusuf to remain at his side, never because he needed him to survive. And Yusuf is the same - he did not have to release Nicolo from his bonds, did not have to drag him into the desert and back out again.

They’ve chosen each other, Nicolo realizes. From the very first moment when they both opened their eyes after death. They could have turned their backs on each other, they could have found others to fight - doing so would have been better for both their causes. But they had reached for each other instead. They have never stopped.

Nicolo clears his throat but can think of nothing to say. He nods. 

Yusuf nods back. “Good.” He strokes his thumb along Nicolo’s cheek, and his fingers trail down Nicolo’s jaw as he steps away. Nicolo has to suppress the urge to bring his own hand up to his face to replace the warmth that just left him. Yusuf kneels down to see if the men they killed together are carrying anything of value, and Nicolo’s heart hammers in his chest as he watches, thinking perhaps he had not understood after all.

***

Over the next few days Nicolo does come to another understanding: Yusuf intends to kiss him.

Well, in truth there are two more things that Nicolo comes to understand: Yusuf intends to kiss him, and Nicolo is going to permit it. 

He does not see why he shouldn’t. Nicolo can finally admit that he likes Yusuf’s touches, the pats to Nicolo’s shoulder after a job well done, the hand he offers when Nicolo needs to be pulled to his feet. He has always liked them, enough that he was willing to die at Yusuf’s hand for mere moments of contact. It is the reason he lingers over Yusuf when he is hurt, the reason he grasps at whatever part of him is within reach when Nicolo is the one in pain. He does not see why kisses between them would be any different.

But it does not come. 

At first it is thrilling, the waiting and the wondering, every brush of Yusuf’s hand charged with possibility. As time passes and opportunities go unseized, Nicolo will begin to think he misread the situation, but then he will catch Yusuf's eyes on him, intent, and the cycle will repeat. Even with all the time they have, it is maddening. 

“We should be in Cairo in a few days,” Yusuf tells him one evening, as he tries to coax fire from sticks with nothing but a knife and a rock.

“Oh?” Nicolo says. It is not that much of a surprise. The desert has steadily given way to greener grasses, taller trees. “What is it like? Cairo?”

“Beautiful,” Yusuf says, grinning. “Much newer than your city. Many people.”

There are many things Nicolo might say to that. _How many people, have you been to Genoa after all, how much farther will it be to Alexandria, did you grow up in Cairo?_ What Nicolo does is stride forward the few steps needed to yank Yusuf to his feet, and press their mouths together. 

He misses, catching more of Yusuf’s beard than lips, and Nicolo jerks back, embarrassed at his clumsiness and disappointed by how unremarkable it felt, nothing but a faint scratching sensation against his lips. 

Yusuf catches him before Nicolo can step away, one hand on his elbow, the other on his shoulder. Nicolo flushes, and feels himself color even more when Yusuf raises his hand to press his thumb against the heat of Nicolo’s cheek.

Yusuf tilts his head and leans forward, guiding Nicolo in until their lips brush against each other for the briefest of moments. Even after all the time spent together, it is the softest touch they have ever exchanged.

Nicolo jerks back again, and Yusuf drops his hands immediately. It is Nicolo’s turn to grasp at him before he can step away. 

Nicolo has been kissed before, though it was when he was barely out of boyhood. It had been similar to this, a chaste brush of lips, an experiment between children rather than something born of desire. He knows this kind of kiss is not what the poets write about. He did not expect his heart to pound from this, his lips to ache for more. 

The shock in his eyes must look like fear, or anger, because Yusuf tries to step back again, an apology written into the frown settling on his face. Nicolo surges forward, takes Yusuf’s face in his hands and kisses him, hard, mouth open, with a desperation that shocks him. Yusuf stumbles backwards a few steps even as he yanks at Nicolo’s shoulders, pulling them closer together. Nicolo moans, fists his hands in Yusuf’s hair, and does not stop kissing him, not even when they topple to the ground and Yusuf grunts from the fall, not even when their teeth clash together from how hard Yusuf surges back up to meet him. 

It feels almost like a fight, and maybe it is - Nicolo cannot stop his hands from clutching at Yusuf, pressing divots into his skin with his fingers, tugging at his hair, stroking through his beard. Yusuf does the same, always finding some way of pressing their bodies closer together, tugging at his hip, an arm wrapped around his back, a hand firm on the nape of his neck. _I will win,_ Nicolo thinks, nonsensically, digging his fingers in harder. _I will not be the one to let go._

In the end, Nicolo does win - Yusuf rolls them over so that Nicolo is the one with his back to the ground, and pulls away for a breath. He returns after only a moment, but he is no longer desperate and grasping - his hand is steady on Nicolo’s face, and the deep kisses he presses to Nicolo’s lips are so slow and so sweet that Nicolo has no choice but to respond in kind. His hands unclench; they spread wide over Yusuf’s shoulders. 

They stop, eventually, their kisses growing slower and slower until one of them ends with Yusuf’s lips sliding away, coming to rest against Nicolo’s neck as he drops his head, as he lets his body pour over Nicolo's, not bothering to pull away.

Nicolo rests one of his hands in the small of Yusuf’s back, staring up at the sky. He used to do that often, in Genoa, trying to see through to the kingdom of heaven. He thinks of the day he left for the crusade, lifetimes ago now. That man standing on a ship, heart filled only with God and righteous purpose, would not recognize the one he is today. Nicolo pities that man. How ignorant he had been, unaware of how empty he truly was. 

“You are a miracle,” Nicolo says. 

Yusuf raises his head to look at him. His lips are red, and his beard shines with wetness from Nicolo’s mouth. The sight is obscene. “You are a miracle,” Nicolo repeats.

Yusuf traces his fingers along Nicolo’s lips. Nicolo smiles against them. He can feel how swollen they are, can’t imagine how debauched he must look. “Miracle?” Yusuf asks. 

Nicolo tilts his head, considering how to explain. “We cannot die,” he says. “That is a miracle. We found each other, we have managed to stay together - that is a miracle. This -” he raises Yusuf’s knuckles to his lips, kisses them, smiles when Yusuf’s eyes soften. “This -” he leans up, presses a kiss to Yusuf’s mouth. He runs his other hand up Yusuf’s back, drawing attention to how perfectly their bodies fit together. “This is a miracle.”

“A miracle,” Yusuf says, nodding. He takes one of Nicolo’s hands, kisses his palm. “Yes, you are a miracle.”

“No, _you_ are -” Nicolo begins, before he catches sight of the mischievous smile Yusuf is hiding in his hand. He laughs, delighted, like a child. 

It occurs to him that this transition from travelling companions to lovers might have been awkward, might have stuttered and stopped and needed to be restarted many times before they arrived here, Yusuf’s head resting on Nicolo’s chest, both of them observing the way their fingers interlace, neither of them in any hurry to separate themselves. They should at least be bashful at how desperately they’d clung to each other, how exhausted they are from mere kisses - and here they are. Nicolo feels nothing but peace.

They stay that way for quite a while, until Yusuf groans. “I am so hungry,” he says, turning his face into Nicolo’s chest. “You could not have waited until after we ate?”

Nicolo smiles up at the sky. “No,” he says. “I could not.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's an awful lot of talk about sex in this one considering that they don't actually do the down and dirty so... you've been warned?

Cairo  _ is _ a beautiful city, and it feels undeniably new and exciting and alive. Much like Nicolo feels beside Yusuf, who crowds close to Nicolo to point out the towers with their minarets as though Nicolo is incapable of spotting them himself. He leads them through the streets with a hand lighting on Nicolo’s back, he tugs Nicolo out of the way of passing groups with a hand at his hip. They’ve amassed weapons and trinkets in their journey here, so they sell the ones they do not need and Yusuf uses the money to press a myriad of different foods into Nicolo’s hands, delighting in his reactions. Nicolo feels giddy under all his attention, flushing nearly as often as he smiles. It is ridiculous - neither of them are young men, and here they are, teasing each other so recklessly. 

Yusuf’s eyes twinkle whenever Nicolo blushes, he laughs whenever Nicolo is flustered enough to drop something, and eventually Nicolo has to drag him into an alley to get his revenge, hooking a hand in Yusuf’s collar and reeling him in for a kiss. Yusuf blinks at him, stunned into silence, and it is Nicolo’s turn to laugh. Yusuf ducks his head and smiles at him, eyes gone soft and shy. It is nearly inconceivable that Nicolo has seen this same man fight with such ferocity, that he himself has been struck down by him too many times to count. 

They spend the rest of the day continuing their slow wander through the city. Nicolo does not feel as out of place as he thought he would - there are many types of people here, despite it not being a port, and the ruin wrought by the crusade feels very far away. Still, by the time evening falls and they engage a room near the university, Yusuf has quieted, grown contemplative. There are still so many things that Nicolo does not understand about him; they are still practically strangers.

When he tucks himself in behind Nicolo, wrapping his arm around his chest in the manner they have discovered that they like, Nicolo laces their fingers together and asks, “You have been to Cairo before?”

“Yes,” Yusuf says. He is silent for a long time, breath soft against the back of Nicolo’s neck, before he continues. “I was a trader.”

“You could still be.”

“No,” Yusuf says. “I don’t think so.” 

He is right. If God wanted a merchant and a priest that could not die he would not have picked the two of them. Nicolo squeezes his hand. 

“And you?” Yusuf asks. 

“Hmm?”

“What were you, before?”

“Oh.” Nicolo is vaguely embarrassed to admit it, though it was sure to come up at some point. “A priest.”

“A priest!” Yusuf laughs, pulling Nicolo onto his back, leaning over him. “ _ You _ cannot go back.”

Nicolo reaches up, tracing his fingers across the lines of Yusuf’s face. “Never,” he agrees. 

Yusuf inhales sharply, perhaps not expecting his playfulness to be met with such sincerity. Nicolo draws him down for a slow kiss. When it is over Yusuf rests his head on Nicolo’s shoulder. His curls tickle against the side of Nicolo’s neck, and Nicolo falls asleep smiling.

Yusuf is not in the room when Nicolo wakes, but he returns before Nicolo has time to grow worried with a new bundle of food. He sets it down when he sees that Nicolo is awake and sitting at the little table set up in the corner, crossing to him immediately and resting his hands on Nicolo’s shoulders. Nicolo leans against him, tilts his head back to smile up at him from below. It is so easy to be like this with him. “Shall we stay here a few more days?” He asks. “Do you still have more to show me?”

Yusuf hums. “We can stay here,” he says, before bending down to whisper in Nicolo’s ear. “Though the things I have to show you do not involve Cairo.” He scrapes his teeth along Nicolo’s neck, and Nicolo’s hand darts up to tangle in Yusuf’s hair of its own accord. 

“But,” Nicolo gasps out, laughing a little, even as he tugs Yusuf closer to him. “Oh, but the city is so beautiful. It would - it would be a shame not to see more of it.”

Yusuf’s lips gentle against his skin. “I have seen the city,” he murmurs. “It is more of you I want.” 

Nicolo closes his eyes but it does nothing to protect him from the tenderness in Yusuf’s voice. He freezes, stops pressing Yusuf’s face into his neck. Yusuf picks up on the change, kissing his throat softly before straightening up and stepping away. “Let’s go back to the market,” he says. “You have not tried Om Ali yet.”

Nicolo clutches at the table as he watches Yusuf walk away from him. He may have been a priest in his first life but he was also a young man in a large city - he can tell when Yusuf wants more than embraces and kisses. Each and every time, Yusuf starts off playful or ravenous, firm touches and hard kisses and Nicolo ends up panting into his mouth, moments away from tearing away Yusuf’s clothes. And each and every time Yusuf’s grasping touches turn into sweet caresses, his kisses soften, and that is the moment when Nicolo freezes up and pulls away.

“Nicolo?” Yusuf prompts, by the door. 

Nicolo swallows, shame heating his face. “I - I need some time alone. To think.”

“All right,” Yusuf says immediately, and Nicolo has to close his eyes again. “I can go.”

“No,” Nicolo says, yanking on his boots. “I’ll - I’ll go.”

Yusuf nods, stepping aside when Nicolo heads for the door, but he halts him with a hand at Nicolo’s elbow. “You will come back?”

Nicolo lifts his hand, touches Yusuf’s face. This, at least, he knows. “Always.”

He stumbles out of the building and braces himself against the wall. Then he remembers that Yusuf might be watching, so he pushes himself up and hurries away, down the street until he is sure he is too far away for him to be seen. He ducks into an alleyway and punches the wall so hard his knuckles split and he hears one of the bones in his hand crack. 

It does not make him feel better. He does it again, and slides down the wall, cradling his hand until it heals. 

He feels the urge to weep swelling up, but that will not help him understand why he cannot accept Yusuf’s tenderness, so he pushes it down. 

Nicolo made Yusuf kill him before he touched him in his tent. He did not touch Yusuf with kindness until the very end, and even then Nicolo needed to shed his blood first. Throughout their journey together, Nicolo would only let himself be close when one of them was hurt. Yusuf wanted their first kiss to be chaste, and gentle, and Nicolo did not allow it.

It would be one thing if he did not enjoy the way Yusuf holds his hand, the brush of his lips to the back of Nicolo’s neck as they are drifting off to sleep. But Nicolo craves those touches, treasures them, does not mind that they are given without any pretense. In fact, that they are offered so freely makes his heart swell with joy. So why, when Yusuf offers this final intimacy without the trappings of violence, can Nicolo not accept it?

By the end of the day he still has no answers, so he pushes himself up and finds his way back to their room. 

Yusuf is still awake, sketching at the rickety table. He sets down his things when Nicolo enters. 

“Did you eat?” Yusuf asks, and when Nicolo shakes his head he stands up, begins putting together a plate. 

Nicolo takes it, though he does not feel much like eating. 

“You know we do not have to be together like that. If you do not want.”

Nicolo shakes his head, laughing a little. “That’s not the problem.”

Yusuf sighs. “Will you tell me?”

Nicolo puts down the plate. “You are so gentle with me.”

“Yes,” Yusuf says, without hesitation, as though there is not an alternative to consider, as though Nicolo has not been the walking embodiment of such an alternative. Yusuf frowns and takes a step back, folding his arms. “Is that… do you not...”

“No,” Nicolo hurries to say, stepping forward and laying a hand on Yusuf’s arm. “No, no. It’s just - I am not that way with you.”

Yusuf blinks at him. “What?”

Nicolo looks away to hide his shame. “I am not gentle with you,” he admits. “I could not accept your touch until you killed me, I could not accept your kiss until I threw you to the ground -”

“Nicolo.”

Nicolo looks back at him, and Yusuf raises his eyebrow and looks at Nicolo’s hand, still resting on his arm. Nicolo snatches it back. “That’s different.”

“How is that different?”

“I’ve already touched you. But the first time I always hurt you, or made you hurt me.”

Yusuf throws his hands up. “I killed you the first time, to touch you. Everytime after I killed you, with  _ my _ hands. Do you think that you forced me to do this? And I know you did not like when I stopped. Did you force me then?”

“Well,” Nicolo begins.

Yusuf steps closer, lowers his voice. “Do you think it did not thrill me, how hard your mouth was on mine?”

Nicolo huffs, flushing a little at the reminder and the way that Yusuf’s voice has gone dark. 

Yusuf steps forward, puts his hands on Nicolo’s hips. “It would be easier, I know,” he says. “If we…” he tugs hard, pulling Nicolo forward into his chest, and smiles when Nicolo’s breath stutters. “But I like this,” he continues, reaching up and running his thumb along Nicolo’s lips, so gently Nicolo can barely feel it. Nicolo’s breath stutters at that too. “I like when we touch as though we have never hurt each other. And I think you like it too, yes?”

Nicolo nods.

“Then I will wait until it is easy for you to be soft in my arms. Besides,” Yusuf adds, a teasing note in his voice once again. “You have only denied me for four days. Only a man who cannot go back to being a priest would think that is too long. We do not have to rush, but I understand that I am beautiful and it must be painful to look at me from  _ so _ far away.”

They’re sharing a breath. At some point, Nicolo’s hands came up to tangle behind Yusuf’s back. It would be difficult to get any closer. Nicolo laughs,  _ again _ . 

“You  _ are _ beautiful,” Nicolo tells him, reaching up to wind his finger through one of Yusuf’s curls. “It is painful, yes.”

Yusuf’s eyes go wide and stunned again. Nicolo does not think he will ever grow tired of seeing him look like that. Or of seeing him in any way, really: tired, bloody, cold - it does not make a difference. But he would prefer to see him happy, so Nicolo leans forward to kiss him, for the joy of seeing his smile light up his face the moment before their lips meet. After, they lean into each other, resting their heads on each other’s shoulders. It is so lovely to feel the give and take of Yusuf’s body like this. 

“Where shall we go after Alexandria?” Nicolo asks. 

“Wherever you want.”

“I only want to be wherever you are,” Nicolo confesses. 

Yusuf chuckles. “I am beginning to think you care for me beyond friendship, Nicolo.”

Nicolo smiles into Yusuf’s neck, so that he can feel it, and leans into Yusuf just a little bit more. 

Perhaps it is not the right time to say it. Perhaps it is too soon into their romance, perhaps their bond is still untested. But Nicolo knows his heart, and there is rarely a moment now when he does not marvel at this new fact of his life. He loves Yusuf. Always. Nicolo feels it when Yusuf kisses him, when Yusuf reaches out to jostle him after a joke, when he snores so loudly in his sleep that he wakes them both. His every action makes Nicolo both bubble over with reckless joy and settle with quiet calm.

If their beginning, their constant killing of one another could not keep them from coming together, Nicolo knows that there is nothing that will be powerful enough to drive them apart. He draws back a little, so that he can look into Yusuf's eyes. 

"I love you," he says. Of course, Yusuf does not know the words, and a little crease appears in his forehead. He opens his mouth, but Nicolo shakes his head quickly. "I can't explain it," he says. "There are no words to describe it.” Nicolo takes one of Yusuf's hands, kisses the inside of his wrist, his palm, keeping their eyes locked together through it all, holding none of his emotions back. “I love you,” he repeats. “Do you understand?”

Yusuf considers him carefully, with his clever, intelligent eyes. He has always been the one to lead, the first to identify their similarities, their mutual desires. Nicolo squeezes his hands and prays for that intuition not to fail now, when Nicolo is the one asking him to follow. 

Yusuf's eyes clear. He smiles. He reaches up, tucks Nicolo's hair behind his ear, traces the line of his jaw. He skims his hand over the base of Nicolo's throat, like he had the first time he killed Nicolo without malicious intent, so long ago now. Nicolo had thought his touch was gentle then - what a fool he was. After a moment he slides his hand back, curling his fingers around the nape of Nicolo's neck. "Yes, Nicolo," he says. "I understand."

Nicolo nods. He turns his head, kisses the inside of Yusuf's wrist. "Good," he breathes. "Good."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, we've reached the end! I've been overwhelmed by all the feedback I've gotten on this, you've all been so lovely and kind and far too generous with your compliments. I really can't thank you all enough for all your kudos and comments, it's been crazy and so much fun to see the reaction to this beast.
> 
> That being said, endings are really hard, so I hope you found this satisfying and not a total letdown. There was a lot of head banging involved at the end there.
> 
> You're all the best. Stay safe and stay sane out there.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [tumblr](https://deanniker-wastingtime.tumblr.com/) losing control of my life, if that's something you're into.


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